Tuesday, December 1, 2009

What MNOs can do about app stores?

Two months ago, Apple announced more than 2 billion application downloads since its App Store launch. Over this time, the store has grown to an impressive number of 100.000 apps. Apple’s success has not gone unnoticed. Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Google, Microsoft, and other smartphone vendors have started to launch similar services for their users leveraging their brands and platform ownership.

The main question remains whether MNOs and MVNOs can bite into the app store business, or they will be out of game with their customers going over the top? Tier 1 MNOs will certainly snap up the opportunity to offer their own app stores. Vodafone, Orange, Verizon, Sprint, Telefonica and several other have already launched their stores. However, with Apple as a clear leader and many alternative stores, this market segment has become really crowded.

We will probably observe several different strategies and business models here:

  • Tier 1 MNOs will certainly try to launch their own app stores. The main challenge for will be to attract developers and create a differentiating portfolio apps.
  • Tier 2/3 will follow up by either licensing third party app stores such as Handango or GetJar or/and aggregating applications already offered by handset vendors.
  • MNOs from emerging markets will most probably ignore app stores for the moment as the penetration of high-end smartphones is very low there.
You can read more about app store strategies for MNOs in TM Forum Report "Evolving SDPs - Essential Plumbing for Smart Pipes"

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